The Jakarta Post
As the technicalities of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s fund for training jobseekers are being scrutinized by the government, critics are raising questions about the effectiveness of the cards for narrowing the country’s deeply rooted skills gap. The devil is in the details. No details are fixed yet for the so-called “pre-employment cards” that are expected to be rolled out next year, less than four months from now. How much money will each fund recipient get? What are the qualifications? Will there be any time period for the funding? It’s all top line at this point: About Rp 10.3 trillion has been budgeted for the cards that are to be disbursed to 2 million recipients, of which 1 million would specifically be for digital training and the rest for other unidentified skills. The mechanism would be similar to that o...